Opinion Let’s do ’em up
First we scrapped cars, then boilers. John Deasy asks whether it’s now time for commercial buildings to be the next scrappage scheme target
F
irst there was the scrappage allowance scheme for cars, which targeted vehicles more than 10 years old and gave car owners a £2,000 allowance towards a new vehicle. Then there was the boiler scrappage
scheme, providing a £400 voucher to replace a G-rated boiler with a new A-rated one or energy effi cient alternative. So why not apply the same principles to fund energy effi ciency improvements for commercial buildings? No, it’s not a proposal to knock down all of our current
stock! But surely it would make more sense to combine all the energy effi ciency schemes and policies currently available into a unified arrangement, giving occupiers and building owners a single scheme that allows them to upgrade their facilities from G-rated to A-rated? The car scrappage scheme was designed, in theory at
least, to boost the car industry – keeping factories running and people employed – while improving the effi ciency of vehicles on the road. It was extended until March 2010, and is generally now viewed as a success. In December 2009, the government announced a domestic boiler scrappage scheme aimed at removing G-rated domestic boilers and replacing them with new, highly effi cient A-rated condensing boilers or renewable energy systems. The scheme provided an allowance of £400 towards the supply and fi t of a new boiler and was expected to benefi t some 125,000 homeowners. However, bearing in mind we have some 26 million homes in the UK, this represents just 0.48% of the current stock, so the scheme merely scratched the surface of the problem. What’s more, it’s likely that these new boilers are being
fitted into uninsulated, draughty houses, thus partly defeating the object. According to the Confederation of British Industry, homeowners and businesses waste £15m worth of energy every day due to a combination of inefficient boilers, and poorly insulated walls, roofs, windows and doors. So, how could a building scrappage scheme work?
Using the existing energy performance certifi cate (EPC) scheme might be one way, giving building owners and occupiers the opportunity to claim the various allowances in a simple arrangement via council tax rebates. As it is via council tax, we have the added advantage of local control and
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accountability – something the new government is very keen on. Similar in operation to the Home Energy Management scheme, it would have a number of advantages: • Creating jobs in manufacturing and installation; • Saving at least some proportion of the estimated £15m per day lost to the economy that literally goes out of the window (or through the wall, roof or up the fl ue);
• Improving the infrastructure of the country for the long term and enhancing its asset value; and
• Saving thousands of tonnes of CO2 emissions – and surely that’s the point.
Implementation of the scheme
could take a similar form to the way car tax is decided: the more emissions a building is responsible for, the higher the business rates or council tax. Any money accrued from this scheme could be provided in grants and loans to improve the effi ciency of low scoring stock. The grounds for this may already have been laid, as the
Providing incentives
now for building refurbishment will help to revive our ailing building industry
current government consultation, Making Better Use of Energy Performance Certifi cates and Data, proposes to give local authorities access to anonymised EPC data so they can target poorly performing homes with energy effi ciency advice. A similar arrangement for commercial buildings would be welcome. It might be a radical suggestion, but why not? When
needed, the government propped up the banks with some £850bn* of loans and guarantees – none of which will go towards improving the infrastructure of this country. This puts the meagre £50m offered for boiler upgrades into context. Money spent now on improving the infrastructure
will provide carbon reduction benefi ts for years to come. Surely we can do much more to provide incentives for building refurbishment – which will help to revive both our ageing building stock and ailing building industry. ●
John Deasy is UK commercial director of multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy, Hilson Moran.
REFERENCES: *
www.independent.co.uk/ news/uk/politics/163850bn- offi cial-cost-of-the-bank-
bailout-1833830.html
July 2010 CIBSE Journal 23
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